


all about the endless search

by herax



Category: Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order (Video Game)
Genre: Caretaking, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Reference to disordered eating/undereating, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:42:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23221159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herax/pseuds/herax
Summary: After picking him up on Bracca, Cere does her best to help Cal settle in aboard the Mantis.
Relationships: Cere Junda & Cal Kestis
Comments: 15
Kudos: 173





	all about the endless search

**Author's Note:**

> ‘Missing scene’ h/c fic set after Cere and Greez rescue Cal from Bracca and before they land on Bogano.
> 
> I’m so sorry for spamming the tag for this fandom but it’s quarantine o’clock and I don’t know what else to do with my time.

“Go,” Cere says gently. “You’re safe. For now.”

From the way Cal clutches his half-broken lightsaber, her words aren’t as convincing as she hoped and Cere wonders how long it’s been since he’s actually felt safe. 

After all, five years is a long time to spend looking over your shoulder.

With their course set for Bogano, Greez busies himself in the kitchen, cooking up some kind of loin for their supper. Cere loiters for a few minutes but once Greez asks if she has some magical power that allows her to cook things faster by staring at them, she admits defeat and goes through to check on their newest recruit instead.

There’s no noise from Cal’s room. 

Cere thinks he might be meditating — she did set up that circle for a reason — but when she pokes her head around the door, she sees he’s sitting on the end of the bed, leaning against the wall and already asleep.

The position doesn’t look comfortable and she knows from experience that he’ll probably sleep better after he gets a shower and some clean clothes, but she still feels guilty when she knocks on the door to wake him up. “Cal?”

He wakes with a panicked jerk, the movement startling them both, and Cere holds her hands up as he scrambles backward and reaches for his lightsaber.

“It’s okay, it’s just me,” she says. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Cal scrubs a hand over the embarrassed flush that covers his cheeks. The movement leaves smudges of dirt in the wake of his fingertips. 

“Sorry,” he says. “Still getting used to this.”

Cere smiles. “I didn’t realise you were asleep. I just wanted to stop by and give you the tour.”

Cal blinks up at her, like he isn’t sure he’s quite awake yet. “The tour?”

“Well, it’s not much of one,” Cere says. “Mostly just the bathroom and maintenance, so you can get cleaned up. Oh, and the kitchen, but for that you can usually just follow the smell of food.”

Cal still doesn’t look convinced but he pushes himself to his feet anyway, lightsaber off but held tight in his hand. Cere only caught parts of the fight back on Bracca but from the way he’s holding himself, she adds ‘healing’ to the list of things Cal probably needs.

“You know I don’t have any money, right?” Cal asks abruptly. 

Cere frowns, confused, but Cal keeps going, “I mean, I had a handful of credits stored back down on Bracca but I’m guessing someone’s already broken into my place and stolen them by now. I know you said I’m here to help you ‘restore the Jedi order’ but I- I don’t have anything.” He looks down at his feet as he admits, “I barely made enough at the scrapyard to afford food and rent; I don’t have money to pay for passage across the galaxy.”

“I’m not asking you to pay for anything,” Cere promises, feeling foolish for not covering this sooner. “I’ve already chartered this ship and her captain for as far as we need to go. As least as far as credits are concerned, it’s handled.”

Cal eyes her with suspicion. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Cere doesn’t know much about scrapyards but from the look on Cal’s face, she guesses they weren’t big on community spirit. The tension doesn’t leave his shoulders but he does manage a little shrug of acceptance, and Cere decides to take her victories where she can find them.

She leads the way down the hallway, gesturing to the rooms on her right as she says, “My bunk is right here and that’s Greez’s. The bathroom’s just through there.” She opens the door and watches as Cal peeks inside. “The water pressure’s better than you’d think, although watch your footing if you shower right after Greez — I don’t know what’s in his shower gel but the floor can get pretty slippery afterwards.” 

“Hey!” Greez calls from the kitchen. “It’s exfoliating, thank you. You know how hard it is to keep skin like this looking good?”

Cere rolls her eyes but is pleased to see the hint of smile on Cal’s lips. 

“The blue towel is yours if you want to get cleaned up,” she says, and doesn’t miss the way Cal hunches his shoulders a little in shame.

“Sure,” he says. “Thanks.”

Cere decides not to probe further, and instead gestures back to Cal’s room and the ladder leading down to the ship’s innards. “The maintenance equipment is down there. The washer looks old but it works well. Shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes to get your clothes clean and dry, although you might want to let the poncho air-dry for a bit.”

“Thanks,” Cal says again. “I’ll get right on it.”

He talks like she’s giving him orders instead of helping him settle in but Cere doesn’t press it. It’s taken her over a year to find a Jedi who survived the purge and who has the slightest interest in helping to rebuild the order; she isn’t about to spook him into changing his mind.

“The kitchen’s through there when you’re done,” she says instead. “Greez is a surprisingly decent cook-”

Greez’s head appears around the door, a look of outrage on his face. “Whoa, whoa, _decent_? I cook us an orxtle casserole two days ago that would make any cantina cook green with envy and now I’m downgraded to just ‘decent’?”

“Greez is a very good cook,” Cere amends, loudly, and gives Cal a smile when she adds, “Although if you just want to go straight to sleep, we won’t stop you. I know it’s been a rough day.”

“Something like that,” Cal says. 

He turns to head back to his room, already tugging his oil-smeared poncho off over his head, and Cere calls after him when she sees the blood staining his clothes beneath, “There are some stims under the sink too if you’re still injured.”

Cal looks back in surprise at that but gives her a quick nod of gratitude as he disappears back into his room. Cere hears the clang of his boots on the ladder, then the whirr of the washer a few moments later, and she closes the door behind her to give him privacy when she heads back through to the kitchen.

Greez is eyeing up some lurid spices as Cere sits on the couch, but with a level of discretion Cere didn’t expect, he waits until they hear the sound of the shower running before he asks, “How’s the kid doing?”

“He’s scared,” Cere says with a sigh. 

“I guess having those inquisitor types looking for you will do that,” Greez says with sympathy. “I could do without having them hanging off my ship by the way. Just something to work on in future.”

Cere smiles. “I’ll bear that in mind. Honestly, I can’t tell whether he’s more nervous about us or the Empire at this point.”

“Since we don’t run around killing people, I’m going to say he should probably be more worried about the Empire,” Greez says helpfully. The meat sizzles in the pan in front of him and he glances back at the closed door before he whispers, “You sure this kid is the one you want?”

“I don’t really have a choice,” Cere points out. “At least he’s a Jedi.”

“Yeah, but when you said we were picking up a Jedi, I figured it would be some old guy. Y’know, with robes and a deep voice and some kind of fancy accent. Oh, and definitely with a beard.”

Cere laughs at that. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“He’s young,” Greez says, his smile fading. “Real young. He couldn’t have been more than a kid when that whole clone thing happened, and then he spent the last five years working on that dungheap of a planet? Yeesh.”

Cere arches an eyebrow. “Make your point, Greez.”

“My point is that it’s not a great recipe for mental stability,” he says. “The scrapper’s guild ain’t exactly overflowing with good-natured folks, you know? I just don’t want to wake up to find some little punk’s knifed me in my sleep or tried to steal my ship.”

“You have a lock on your door,” Cere points out. “But I don’t think he’ll try anything. He’s got enough to deal with without adding murder to the list.”

“Oh, good,” Greez mutters. “He’s too _busy_ to murder me. That’s reassuring.”

The crackle of the meat gets louder when he turns the heat up. Rather than shout over the noise, Cere goes back to reading through the day’s Imperial communications as she waits for the food to be ready and for Cal to emerge from the shower. 

He’s in there a long time, long enough that she starts to worry, and by the time Greez starts dishing the food out onto plates, she decides to check on him.

The shower is still running when she heads into the hallway, although the sound is steady enough that it doesn’t sound like Cal is actually moving around in there. 

She checks his room and the maintenance hub, just to make sure she hasn’t missed anything, but she frowns when she realizes that he’s been in there long enough for the washer to finish its cycle. Hanging his poncho over the railing, she scoops up the rest of his scrapper’s uniform and heads back up to knock on the bathroom door.

Her knuckles are just about to collide with the plastic when the door slides open without warning. She and Cal both spring backwards with matching yelps of surprise and they stumble over their explanations at the same time.

“I saw the washer was done, so I thought I’d bring your clothes up-”

“I couldn’t get it to turn off, and I only had the towel, so I figured-”

They fall silent at about the same time and Cere averts her eyes from where Cal has the blue towel wrapped around his lower half before holding the clothes out for him to take.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” she says. “Finish cleaning up, I’ll turn the water off when you’re done. I’m sorry about that — Greez was supposed to have fixed that handle.”

Cheeks reddened from both the hot water and from embarrassment, Cal accepts the clothes gladly. The bathroom door slides closed again and Cere runs a hand through her hair with a sigh as she processes the flurry of new concerns she has about her new crewmate.

For starters, he needs more food. 

The bulk of the poncho hid most of it but with just the towel covering him, there’s no hiding how skinny he is. Cal’s anxiousness about money and Greez’s warnings about the nature of the scrapper’s guild paint an unpleasant but unavoidable picture, and Cere tries to push down her guilt at the thought of a Padawan — a _child_ — being left to grow up in that place.

She makes a mental note to ask Greez to cook some fattier foods but soon turns her attention to the second problem as she digs underneath her bunk for her medical kit. Between Trilla’s lightsaber and the stormtroopers’ blasters, she figured Cal might have some burns from the fight but the sheer number of bruises and scars littering his torso took her by surprise.

Conscious that a thorough examination of his wounds is probably off the table, she settles on some bacta gel to help with the scarring and a pot of salve for the bruising. 

Some of the marks were dark enough that she almost suspects fractured ribs or internal bleeding, like he fell off a roof instead of just getting into a fight, but her medical abilities don’t stretch that far and they can’t risk stopping at a hospital on their way to Bogano.

Nevertheless, the gel and the salve feel awkwardly insufficient for the severity of his wounds and when the bathroom door finally reopens, Cere hopes that he’s at least made use of the stims she’s been storing up.

He looks slightly better when he emerges, no longer filthy with blood and oil, but Cere’s struck by just how young he looks as he crinkles his nose and pushes strands of his wet hair out of his eyes.

The scars across his face are more prominent against clean skin, red lines across his jaw, nose, lip, and brow, and Cere finds herself wondering how many of them he had before the purge. 

(And how many could have been prevented if she’d found her way to Bracca sooner.)

However, she keeps her questions to herself as she presses the medical supplies into Cal’s hands. 

He inspects them as she dips into the bathroom to shut the shower off, and she nods to the kitchen when she says, “I think the food’s ready if you want to eat.”

Cal hesitates, one hand going to the lightsaber on his hips and his eyes still darting around the hallway as he checks for threats. Cere feels a little guilty for resting a hand on his shoulder and shepherding him through to the kitchen regardless. 

There are three places set, with one already taken by Greez, and she motions for Cal to take a seat at the larger of the two remaining portions. 

They eat in near-silence, broken only by Greez and Cere making stilted small-talk about the blend of herbs used or the tenderness of the meat. 

For his part, Cal barely seems to pause for breath as he eats, like he’s expecting the food to be taken away any second, and Cere just shakes her head when Greez gives her a questioning look.

Despite his apparent enthusiasm for a hot meal, Cal looks like he’s about to fall asleep on his plate as soon as he finishes, and Cere says as casually as she can, “Feel free to go off to bed if you want, Cal. I’ve always been a slow eater, and Greez and I have some logistics to discuss.”

He sways slightly from exhaustion when he stands but he pauses in the doorway, medicine still held in his hand as he looks between Greez and Cere. 

“I, uh- Thank you. For the food and the bed and all this.” His smile is half-hearted at best. “Can’t say I expected the day to turn out like this when I went to work this morning.”

Cere smiles. “We’re lucky we found you when we did. But there’s no need to thank us.”

“Right,” Greez chimes in. “We’re a team now. Sharing the goods and all that.” He points his fork at Cal. “Except my ship. Do not steal my ship or I swear I will hunt you down.”

Cal tilts his head, baffled, and Cere gives Greez a swift kick under the table.

“Sleep well,” she says firmly. “Come find us if you need anything. We should be near Bogano by morning.”

Nodding, Cal pads off down the hallway to his bunk, giving the salve a curious sniff as he goes, and Cere looks back at Greez expectantly.

Greez scowls. “Stop giving me that look.”

“You still worried he’s going to kill you in your sleep?”

“Well, no,” Greez admits. “But I maintain that’s just because he looked real hungry and sleepy. I’m always hungry and sleepy, I can relate.”

“I can’t imagine the food’s that appetizing down on Bracca,” she says. “He’d probably be grateful to get some good meals in him.”

“Say no more,” Greez says. “I got a friend on Frong who sent me half a dozen new recipes — I’ve been dying to test them out. There’s this thing you can do with cushnip…”

Cere tunes out the food-talk with practised ease and slows down her eating only long enough to make occasional noises of interest or affirmation. 

Greez is still rambling by the time she clears the table, albeit mostly talking to himself now rather than her, and when he returns to the cockpit to check their progress, Cere takes advantage of the quietness to sit on the couch and check the tuning of her hallikset.

It’s an old crutch but a soothing one, and her fingers find their places on the strings with ease as she lets the melody wash over her. It isn’t enough to push away the memory of Trilla, cloaked in imperial garb and charging towards her with that red lightsaber in hand, but it anchors her and Cere feels herself relaxing for the first time in hours.

She pauses when she hears a voice from down the hall, sleep-thick cries of ‘No!’ and ‘Master!’ along with names she doesn’t recognise. 

It feels like intruding, prying into more of Cal’s past than she has any right to know about, and so she returns her attention to the hallikset. 

The soft tune fills the ship, drifting through the cockpit and down into the hallway, and Cere closes her eyes as she hums along to it. The memories welcome her this time — playing this same song around a fire, feeling Cordova sway beside her in time to the music — and after the stress of the day, she’s grateful for the respite.

When the music trails off, it’s partly replaced by the sound of Greez snoring quietly in the captain’s chair. She strains her ears to listen for any noise from the other end of the ship but she smiles to herself when she doesn’t hear any further cries from Cal.

More than ready for sleep herself, she sets the hallikset down by the table and can’t help but give it a satisfied little pat before she heads to bed. Maybe three of them might make a decent team after all.


End file.
